Third Greek Bailout Package Is Finally On Deck

As noted on Friday, the Greek soap opera, in which Europe pretends to bail out Greece when it is just bailing out its insolvent banks by not touching the status quo, and Greece pretends to reform and comply with austerity reforms when it merely continues to spend as before until the money runs out and the entire act is repeated, is about to enter its third act.

Yesterday, Greek Kathimerini reported that the reason why the Troika has put Greece on ice and has is behind in the implementation of 153 actions demanded by its lenders, according to a timetable compiled by the Finance Ministry. "Of the outstanding actions, 57 are the responsibility of the Finance Ministry, 17 fall to the Development Ministry, another 17 to the Labor Ministry and eight to the Administrative Reform Ministry. The rest are divided among other ministries. A number of the actions have yet to be completed as the government remains in discussions with the troika about the measures. Inspectors are expected to return to Athens later this month but a date has not yet been fixed." In other words, the bulk of the conditions agreed to as part of the second bailout have yet to be met by Greece.

So what happens next? Why a third Greek bailout of course.

As reported by Spiegel over the weekend, citing a five-page German finance ministry 'position paper', Schauble is preparing the ground for a third aid package for Greece that would amount to €10-20 billion. When will the package be deployed? By May. Because that's when the European elections take place and when the next major Greek debt redemption takes place: after all can't have even the tiniest gust of wind blow on Europe's impecable house of cards...

The possibilities outlined include a further debt haircut that would mainly hit public creditors or a «limited additional program» in which Greece could receive fresh money from the European rescue fund, the report said.

The package could amount to 10 billion to 20 billion euros, said Der Spiegel, and would be tied to commitments from Athens to undertake reforms with more vigour.

A spokesman for the finance ministry denied that a new debt writedown was planned for Greece.

"There is no new situation,» said the spokesman and referred to previous statements made by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

The minister has in the past said there could be a remaining need for some refinancing but any further package would be far smaller than the aid granted so far.

Greece has received 240 billion euros of support in two aid packages from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the euro zone since 2010 in return for spending cuts and reforms.

A senior EU official said last month that Greece was not in urgent need of funds now and extra money would only be needed when Greece must pay back debt. Its next big redemption date is in mid-May.

That said, by now nobody cares as pretty much everyone has figured out the game, which will continue on its unsustainable path until one day it no longer can.

1. Their balance sheet instantly looks a lot better (more credit-worthy, though it would take a couple years before anyone would loan to them again).

2. Without the interest payments due on all that debt, their income statement also improves dramatically.

Why they won't do it, is the same reason they haven't done it up to this point- it's messy and important people will lose lots of money. (Nobody cares about the Greek people, certainly not their bought-and-paid-for puppet politicians)

1. Their balance sheet instantly looks a lot better (more credit-worthy, though it would take a couple years before anyone would loan to them again)."

I know I would sign up for that, since surely I would be treated better than the last several million creditors they had fleeced. And the borrowed money/deficit spending 'this time' would surely not lead to the same result as 'last time'.

Wow! Sounds like the Greek people should unite and take up arms...err sticks and chunks of brick. Yeah, that'll show the man who's in charge.

Not that Canada is really much better off. Sure we've got some guns up here; but we're just simply over-run with liberals and left-wing nutjobs! Unless we pull together and sink every political extremist into the bottom of lake Ontario, I suppose we can only watch and wait, as this thing creeps onto our doorstep too.

If they uniliterally default every bank in Greece only held up by implicit ECB guarantuees through Greek bailouts defaults right with them. If they confiscate Euros and reissue Drachme's the EU courts would be after them, so they'd have to get out of the EU altogether.

What remains of their economy can't afford either ... we're talking about decades of even worse misery for some far future potential improvement.

Marco - The Greek government defaults, the Greek banks go bankrupt. The only issue in this scenario is if depostiers will be reimbursed.

The EU has said back at the start that all European bank accounts are insured up to 100,000Euro. So what is the issue?

You can depend on the government to do the worst things post default so they cling onto power. They cut the last things they should cut first and vice versa and before you know it the country turns into Haiti.

The money is not the issue here, it is the people running the show and the power they have.

The answer for all countries is in the Constitution of the United States.

Let ya in on a small secret no Greek will openly admit but (many in their hearts) know to be true. The majority want the Euro because they realize what a complete bunch of fuckups they are as well as how sly and cunning their thoughts can be. It is for the same reason they all did everything possible to get a government job, realizing full well that this trajectory could not be supported.

So, it is a way to continue to milk the cow ( a new larger one now that they killed their own) and it hands off the problem to someone else. So, when everything goes to hell, the Greeks will simply blame Europe for everything and try to come out clean. The Europeans simply could not have ever imagined such things and they have gotten themselves into "situation". The Europeans may be naive but they are not stupid. They eventually caught on and are putting the screws to the Greeks.

The whole thing here is if the Greeks can wiggle out of this one, if the troika loses its will or if the whole thing falls to shit. While the banks were suckering them in with loans knowing what was to follow, the Greeks felt that the joke was on the banks. We shall see.......

Kinda like when a woman really loves you, she'll openly tell you and warn you about what bitches women can be.

Down vote away if you want . The truth never gets too many votes and I think that is reflected by the state of our world.

"What if they had just defaulted, dropped the euro and went back to being an independent country again, as the had been for 2, 3 thousand years?"

One thing to be sure, Is it the GERMANS???? are they Sovereign and Independent THEMSELVES???

OR

They are also under occupation since 1945?

Who has Military Bases on their soil? Just like Greece?

Who was "mind the GAP Papandreou" answering to?? (He is holding a USA passport)

Was his Roommate (SomeAreAss) in the US of A, not party to the entire Charade from the begining?

Who are they protecting? ..........well we can see who has been fucked in the ass so far.

There were voices in Greece (Somebody called Kazakis) and abroad (within the IMF ,the Strauss Can affair, even Russia Switcherland, Brazil.etc. etc.) for doing just what you said from the begining if not 1984 (The Central Banker at the time)

And instead of reigning in the expenses, they went into a spending spree, with ARMAMENTS (American and German and French even Russian) to counter the "Turkish Threat" All has been manufactured by the POLITICIANS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AEGEAN.

The first bailout to Greece did not go to Greece at all but to Deutsche Bank and some French banks. Deutsche Bank loaned some 500 billion Euro to Greece, Spain and other countries. These investments had to be protected. And the Greek people are paying for it ever since.

lol, GD avows nazi affliation via its party symbols openly; so the truth as you say was OUT in the open and not secret like some other 'nationalistic' parties hiding their neo-fascism behind the facade of national or ethnic origins.

The GD are the only hope for countering the Kosher Bolsheviks. Anything else is simply remaining a slave to the banksters and under threat from their ethnic weapon, the deliberate massive influx of third world hordes.

This goes to the heart of the morality of what we find ourselves in. To some extent, it has always been so, but it was hidden behind the simple smooth functioning of the mechanism.

It all comes down to this: What possible morality can there be when you effortlessly create a substance out of nothingness, lend it to another person, and then demand that person -- at considerable pain and suffering to himself -- return that substance to you with interest. How can it make sense that the word "deadbeat" exists when we view the entire matter as I just described it?

Stop thinking monetary thoughts. What is taking the system down is oil scarcity and the overwhelming cost -- in joules -- that increasingly exists to get those joules out of the ground.

So they are going to give them the money to pay back the debt and pretend everything was alright. Does the money just go straight to the German Banks or do they have to share it with other bond holders.